A Second before Death
by StirDrem
Summary: The Great Fire of Fuyuki had happened, but Shirou's family had already left Fuyuki City. Then an accident happened in 1994 and he came to live with his cousin. The Holy Grail War is still continuing. But Shirou now unlocks his true Origin: "Time". What would happen to him in the future?
1. A Second to Live

**A Second to Live**

* * *

 **28th/February/1994**

It was a dark night.

A crashed car was found.

A boy was near there, bleeding.

He had red hair, and badly injured, but not dead.

The same thing couldn't be said for his parents.

They were crushed by the car.

But the reason why the boy didn't meet the same fate couldn't be explained, either it was luck or something else.

But none of that matter now.

He was alive.

* * *

 **1st/March/1994**

He opened his eyes.

He was in a room, lying on a bed.

His body was bandaged. He was wearing a simple light blue shirt and pants.

He realised he was brought to the hospital.

The door opened. A red-haired woman walked in, then sit by the boy.

"And who are you might be?"

"Touko Aozaki, your cousin."

The boy put his hand to his chin, making a thinking posture.

"I'm sorry about the loss of your parents."

"I don't wanna talk about it." His eyes saddened.

"Then do you want to come live with me then?"

He looked at Touko, raising his eyebrows.

"Would you rather live in an orphanage or be adopted by your cousin?"

He lower his eyebrows.

"Then it's decided then. Welcome to the family, Shirou Aozaki. But be warned, I'm a Magus."


	2. A new home

**A new home**

* * *

 **Morning, 7th/March/1994**

"Pack your stuff. Let's go."

"Go where?"

"To your new home. You have been released from the hospital."

"Wait, really?!"

"The doctor said that you have been fully healed only in a week. Normally it takes more than a month for the wounds to be healed."

Shirou was shocked.

"Also, you look a bit more mature since the last time I saw you."

"Eh?"

He took a mirror on the table beside him and looked at himself.

He no longer looked like a 7-year-old kid but instead look like a 10-year-old one.

"Wha-"

"It's probably the thing that help you heal faster. Let's go now so I can check on your condition in my place."

"Erm… OK?"

* * *

Next to him, a matured potted plant usually seen was somehow disappeared, only the pot remained.

* * *

 **Afternoon, at an abandoned house**

"What is this?"

"My home. This is both my workshop and where I live."

"But why an abandoned house?"

"...Let's don't go over that fact."

They went up to the 4th floor. Inside it looked like a regular office.

"Go put away your stuff and have a rest. We will begin the next morning."

"But where do I sleep?"

"On the couch."

* * *

 **Morning, 8th/March/1994**

"Turn around and face your back at me."

"Eh?"

"Just do it. I need to check on you to see if you are capable of learning Magecraft."

"Wait wait wait wait wait. I never said I wanted to learn magic." Shirou denied furiously.

"Stop talking and sit still."

Touko placed her hand on Shirou's back and closed her eyes.

"Let see here... 27 high-quality Magic Circuits... elements...The Great Five Elements?! Wait...Origin...!"

She paused.

"What's the matter?" Shirou asked.

"Time."

"Huh? Time? And what's with all the stuff that you said before?"

"Sit still. I will explain it to you, and everything you need to know about Magecraft."

Shirou gulped. At that moment, he knew, he fucked up.

She proceeded to lecture Shirou for 3 hours straight, and didn't let him go anywhere, except the bathroom.

But somehow, Shirou managed to get all of that information in his tiny 7-year-old (probably not anymore) head.

"...And now back to your condition. Your Origin of "Time" may be the reason why your wounds heal sooner and you became older."

"How exactly?"

"You may have awaken your Origin in the accident. And when you were injured, your body's time was sped up into the future, probably 2-3 years, when all your injuries had already healed."

He did a thinking posture.

"I get it."

"You did?"

"This is getting more interesting than I expected."

"Eh?"

"Alright, I have decided. Teach me Magecraft."

"What?!"

Touko couldn't seem to catch up with him.

"Hmm? Is there something wrong, Touko-san?"

"No, nothing."

"I'm hungry. Let's go get some lunch."

* * *

Shirou began learning Magecraft under Touko, with her teaching him how to master all of his 5 Elements. About his Origin, she's still looking for a way for him to use it efficiently. But it irritated her how it reminded her of Fifth Magic: Magic Blue that her sister, Aoko -the one person she couldn't get along with- used, the magic that she was supposed to be the one to wield it.

Shirou had started to go to elementary school, and often helped her out in doing some errands. Touko told Shirou about Garan no Dou, the agency that Touko set up, when one of her customer came by. He now also learnt magic and self-defend under Touko's teaching. The magic that he felt the most familiar/comfortable with are Reinforcement, Gradiation Air, and structural analysis. He felt a deep connection to the magic itself, albeit that was the first time he had ever learnt it. He couldn't understand why.

* * *

Almost a year had passed since then.

 **Morning, 24th/December/1994**

"Touko, look! It's snowing!" Shirou pointed out of the window.

"I guess winter is coming then." Touko shrugged and looked back at her documents.

* * *

 **Evening, 30th/March/1994**

A boy named Mikiya Kokutou met a girl named Shiki Ryougi in a snowy night. That fated meeting had set the future for the both of them.


	3. An unexpected meeting

The first meeting of Shirou and Shiki wouldn't turn into a fight, I'm sorry for that. But something else important will happen in this chapter, so stay tuned. The timeskip will be filled in in the future chapter.

* * *

 **An unexpected meeting**

 **September 1995**

"Damn it. Touko made me buy her cigarettes late at night. When I denied, she used her other persona to threaten me. Argh! I wish I could just… Even though there's a murderer out here somewhere, she still made me do this." Shirou was grumbling to himself angrily. Then he stopped as he saw a red puddle on the ground.

He crouche to inspect it.

Blood.

"What the… The murderer is here?"

He followed the blood trail and saw tire tracks on the ground.

"No. It must have been an accident…" This reminded him of the day his parents died and he was the only one survived.

He kept following the blood trail and saw an image.

An image that engraved into his young mind.

A girl - seemed to be a teenager – wearing light blue kimono with bloodstain, using blood of the dead man to paint her face, smiling.

He fell to his back.

Due to her standing under the shadow and the blood, he couldn't see her entire face. The girl looked at Shirou, her smile creeped him out, then turned her back and walk away.

"Wait!" He stood up and tried to chase her.

But she disappeared.

He looked around to see if she was anywhere, but it was in vain. Then he looked at the corpse. It seemed that he was hit by a truck but survived, then sat here and died of blood lost. Shirou took out his cellphone (he begged Touko to buy one for him) and called the ambumlance. He then walked back to his home, tempting to tell Touko about this.

"Man, this is one heck of a day. I would never buy anything for Touko at night anymore."

He had a feeling something was off, but shrugged it away.

* * *

 **January 1996**

It was New Year. Shirou had a party with his friend and came home late. He was walking back home, passing by a alley. Then he stopped to look at the alley. He felt something was luring him in. He took caution, but his curiosity still made him to walk into the alley. He only saw an old woman dressing in black, wearing a hat with blue flowers on the side of the hat and a net in front of her face.

"Welcome." She said "Do you want to read your fortune, boy?"

"What is this? A fortuneteller? Guess I'll try my luck to see how I will do in this year then."

He walked to the woman.

"Can you read my fortune, please?" He asked her, raising his hand to her.

She inspected his hand. Then she stopped.

"What's the matter?"

Her face showed a shocked expression.

"You, the person who controls time itself, asking me to read your fortune?"

"Huh? What are you saying? Me, controlling time? That's impossible. But, what do you mean by that?"

"You will find out soon. For now, let's just say that your future will have too many possibilities for me to see, but I'm certain you will have an interesting life, boy."

"Erm…OK?" He then search his pocket.

"No need to pay, young man. You have shown me something interesting today."

"Thank you. There's a murderer out in about right now, so you have to be careful and take care of yourself."

The fortuneteller laughed.

He then turned his back and walked out of the alley.

"He's trully a special person, isn't he?" She mumbled to herself.

After Shirou had gone out of the alley, he was still thinking about the words of the old woman.

" _You, the person who controls time itself…"_

"What does she mean by that?" He thought, "Does it have anything to do with my Origin, I wonder?"

Because he was lost in his thoughts, he bumped into someone and fell to his butt.

"Ouch…" He looked up and saw a boy-ish girl wearing a yellow kimono and a red jacket outside.

"Are you ok, kid? Here, let me help you up." She raised her hand to Shirou.

He grabbed it.

Then, he jolted back.

"What's the matter?" She asked.

"Nothing!"

He proceeded to grab her hand again, she pulled him up.

"Watch where you are going next time kid." Then she walked away.

He looked back at her and then to his hand.

"What was that? Ok, there are too many weird things happening right at the start of the year. What would happen to me for the rest of this year?" He groaned.

He then felt a similarity between the girl he saw last year and this girl, but decided to just put it all away until he get home. He admitted that she (the girl he just met) looked beautiful, though.

The girl, however, were last seen walking into the same alley he just came out of.

* * *

This would be the last chapter from me for now. I'll have to stop writing for a while to study for upcoming test, so sorry about that.


	4. Mystic Dream

**Mystic Dream**

* * *

Later that night.

Shirou had come home and gone to sleep.

Something had awakened inside his body after his interaction with that girl.

Something…

* * *

 _Inside his dream._

He opened his eyes and looked around.

Surrounding him was darkness.

He walked forward.

Image of clocks starting to appear everywhere.

Then he heard a voice.

"Who are you?"

He didn't answer, his legs kept walking.

And then he stopped.

Standing in front of him was himself?

No. The person looked like him, but more matured. He seemed different to this Aozaki here, more… broken.

"Who are you?" Shirou asked.

"Answer me first, who are you?" The person asked again.

"Shirou Aozaki." He replied.

"I see…"

"Now answer mine."

"A person that you will never become." The person replied, turning his back against Shirou.

For a brief moment, Shirou saw a land filled with sword, the sky had many color, part of it have giant gears decending down, the other bathed in twilight from the extended horizon, and the land was dusty, snowy, and filled with grass.

"What the…?"

The person in front of him started to walk away.

"Wait!" Shirou ran after him. But as much as he ran, that person walked further and further. The clocks's hand started to turn like crazy.

Then he heard something.

"You are a new person, differ from "us". Go and make your world a better place. This is no place for me, no, for "us" to intervene. This void is yours to create."

"What do you mea-"

That person disappeared. Then he saw a light, a bright one, then a pair of eyes.

Green, slightly pink and blue in the center, and image of a Roman numbered clock on the eyes.

He started to cough out blood. The puddle of blood were large enough for him to see his reflection.

He looked at himself and saw the pair of eyes, his pair of eyes looked exactly like the ones he just saw.

Then he saw a giant clock above him from the reflection.

He looked up.

The clock fell down onto him.

* * *

 _In the real world._

He sit up, sweating intensively.

He ran to the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror.

The eyes were there.

The Mystic Eyes…

* * *

A short chapter for now. Next chapter will be about Shiki, Mikiya and Shirou.


	5. Murder Mystery (Part 1)

**Mystery Murder (Part 1)**

After that day, strange things kept happening to Shirou. His sense of time was distorted, ten minutes felt like an hour and vice versa. Everything then had a timer-like line of digits next to it. Shirou didn't know what it meant at the time, so he didn't bother investigating it. He hadn't told Touko about this either, and tried to hide it as well by avoiding eye contact with her. But because his sense of time was distorted, sometimes Shirou worked faster than normal, sometimes he just stood there like a statue. Touko noticed this and found it peculiar, but she kept silent and decided to observe him more.

 **January 1996, a week after Shirou had awakened his Eyes.**

It was evening. The sky was turning dark. Shirou was walking home from school.

Night.

"What the?!" He was shocked. It was suddenly dark. The sky turned night time out of nowhere. The street light had already been lit up.

He looked around him with warranty, then continued to walk back home.

Then he encountered _her_ again.

That time he could clearly saw _her_ face.

It was the same as the girl he bumped into.

The same girl he met a few weeks ago.

It was her.

Still wearing the red jacket and yellow kimono, she stood in front of a disfigured corpse. He almost puked when he saw it.

Blood.

Blood.

Blood.

The victim had his limbs cut off, in which the arms were sewn to the legs. He looked at the timer next to him.

 **00:00:00:00**

She turned to look at him.

"Hoh... You are the boy I met last week. We met again."

"You…Were you the one that kill him!?" Shirou asked.

"Who knows? Maybe I did, maybe I didn't." She answered half-heartedly.

"ANSWER ME!" He yelled, his voice echoed through the night.

"If you wanted to know, you have to catch me first!" She said as she ran away.

He chased after her.

But unlike last time, this time, it was different.

Everything around him started to slow down for a short amount of time.

He was slowly catching up to her.

Noticing this, she turned around and took out her knife, throwing it at him. He stopped to dodge it.

The knife lodged itself into the wall.

"Hey, what the hell!" He shouted.

He turned back but she was nowhere to be found.

"Tch! I lost her." He grumbled.

He looked back at knife, pulling it out from the wall.

"At least I got something to bring back home."

"Hmm?"

He noticed that there was a piece of paper attached to the knife.

He opened it up and read it.

" _I will kill you next time if we ever meet again."_

"Haiz… What have I gotten myself into this time?"

He looked back at the knife, noticing that there were not a single drop of blood on the knife.

"If she did kill him, there would be bloodstain on the knife… Maybe she didn't do it…? No, it's still too soon to assume anything."

He decided to call the police to check on the body, and then went home.

* * *

 **Back at Garan no Dou**

"I'm home."

"Welcome back. You went home quite late today. Did something happened?" Touko was reading her documents as usual.

"Yeah. I met up with the one who supposedly was the "murderer". Well, she acted like she did the murder, but…"

"But?" She put down her documents, looking at Shirou.

"Nothing. I'm going down to the worksh- Urgh!" Shirou was talking then suddenly he fell to his knee, his right hand holding his chest.

"Shirou?!" Touko stood up and went to Shirou's side.

He tasted iron in his mouth.

He coughed out blood, his body felt pain all over.

Then he collasped onto the floor.

"SHIROU!"

* * *

Shirou opened his eyes.

He was floating in midair

"Ouch…My head…Wait…"

He looked around him.

It was the same void that was filled with giant clocks.

"I'm back here again."

That time, the gravity in the void was different, and the void wasn't just filled with giant clocks anymore, but various different objects.

He recognized them.

They were all the items Shirou had analysed (or Traced as he liked to call it).

But there was one item that stood out to him the most.

A knife. But not any knife.

It was _her_ knife, the knife he had brought home.

He tried to move around.

"Woah, it feels like I'm in space."

Then he tried to move to the knife's position, his hand reaching out to it.

As soon as he touched it, the knife glowed a bright light, blinding him, forcing him to close his eyes.

He reopened his eyes.

 _His_ eyes saw that he was in a japanese-styled house, lying on a bed.

Then _he_ stood up and went to what supposedly be a bathroom.

He saw _himself_ in the mirror.

It wasn't him anymore.

It was _her_.

He was looking through _her_ perspective.

Shirou didn't know how, but he was pretty embarassed then.

She was wearing only underwear and a white shirt.

And the worst of all, he couldn't even close his eyes, because it was _her_ eyes.

That was one of the images that burned deep inside his mind.

Luckily (or unluckily) for him, she got dressed quite quickly. She put on her yellow kimono, then went downstair to the door, wearing her red jacket in the process.

"Suzurigi-san, I'm going out for a bit." She said.

"Master Shiki, please remember to return soon." A voice of a man was heard from inside the house.

"Hai~"

She got out of the house and started walking downtown to the main street.

She turned at a corner.

Shirou immediately recognized that place.

" _?!"_

The road he usually walked through when he came back from school.

She walked a little bit then stopped.

" _This smell…!"_

The stench of blood reached _her_ nose.

She turned to look.

The same death body he saw when he last encountered her.

She thenheard a noise.

Turning to look, he saw _himself._

"Hoh... You are the boy I met last week. We met again." She said.

The entire scene appeared exactly like when he met her, and he noticed that she had never once pulled out her knife until when _Shirou_ chased her.

And he saw that when he chased after her, there was a point his speed actually doubling up, he remembered that the world around him slowed down half the speed at that moment. He thought it might had to do something with his Eyes.

When she threw her knife at _Shirou_ , his perspective suddenly changed from her to the knife.

That time he could actually look around.

He looked up at _himself_ and saw… Touko's face on his body?


	6. Murderous Truth (Part 1)

**Murderous Truth**

He opened his eyes. The bright sunlight from outside the window shined down onto his face.

He felt an incredibly painful headache.

And saw Touko in front of him.

He tried to get up.

"Urgh…"

He looked around him.

"…And I'm in the hospital again. Great." He remarked sarcastically.

"Do you have anything to say about this?"

Touko raised the mirror to his face.

"…Shit."

His special Eyes was clearly seen through the mirror.

Touko was clearly not pleased about that.

"Umm… well… I got nothing." He immediately confess.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"I thought it wasn't anything big!"

"Having Mystic Eyes isn't a big thing? We'll have a proper talk once you are released from the hospital. I happens to know someone that's specialized in Mystic Eyes. We need to know what your Eyes do and how they function."

"Erm…OK? How long have I fainted anyway?"

"Around half a day. It's currently 7 in the morning."

"This isn't the first time I've skipped school. Eh." He shrugged.

"Go have some rest. I'm going home now."

And in the evening of the same day, he was released.

"Thank you for taking care of Shirou, doctor." Touko bowed to the doctor. Shirou was standing next to her.

"It's not a big deal. But I'm amazed how fast the young Shirou here recovered. He has 3 of his blood veins popped yet all of them healed so fast that you cannot see where it was damaged."

"Thanks for the information. We'll be going now."

 **On their way home**

Shirou was walking in front with Touko following behind.

"Shirou."

"What?"

"When did you unlock your Eyes?"

"It was around New Year I think…? The second time I met her…"

He stopped.

Shirou realised something.

It was _her_.

It had always been _her_.

From their first meeting, to his Eyes awakening.

Shiki. His only clue to her.

"Can you tell me more about this person, this supposedly "murderer"?"

"Sorry Touko, I've just realised something. I'll be going home first." He talked as he ran his way home.

"Wait, Shirou!" Touko tried to follow him.

At Garan no Dou.

He ran inside the office.

"Shit, I need Touko to help me with this." He realised.

"Shirou… Don't *huff* ran off *huff* without me *huff* again." Touko was standing at the door, trying to regain some air.

She then sat on her chair to get some rest, taking out a cigarett to smoke in the process.

"Touko, can you help me find this person?"

"Who do you want to find?"

"Everyone with the name "Shiki" in this city."

"You've got something in your mind?"

"Yeah… But I can't quite put it into words. Just do it. I'll explain it later."

"Fine, you unthankful brat."

 **A few moment later.**

"I've got the informations you need." She gave Shirou a stack of paper.

"Thanks, Touko." He smiled genuinely as he quickly shuffled through the papers. Touko was startled by this.

He stopped at one specific paper.

The paper had a picture of the same girl he had met a few times.

"Shiki Ryougi…" He looked at a paper with certainty.

Shirou suddenly stood up, grabbed the knife on the table he found the other day and ran outside, leaving behind the documents.

"…And he ran off again. I wonder what did he find out?"

She took the paper Shirou left and read it.

"…the second child of the Ryougi family… a demon hunting line of family… This could be interesting." She said as she continued to smoke her cigarett.


	7. Murderous Truth (Part 2)

**Murderous Truth (Part 2)**

 **January 1996, a week before the incident**

"Ouch…My arm…" Shirou held his sore right arm.

"Man. It's cold out here. I should have bought a jacket with me." He rubbed his hands together to warm them up.

He continued to walk his way back home.

* * *

 **Half an hour ago**

"Too big!" Shirou arrived at the address he had written onto a small piece of paper.

In front of him was a giant house, and seemed to be an old Japanese-styled house.

"I need to prepare myself first." He slowly walked to the door, and knocked three times.

The person who greeted him was a man.

He wore a black suit, sunglasses and seemed to be a guard in this place.

Shirou was intimidated by him, but he tried to talk to him anyway.

"Erm…Is Ryougi Shiki here?"

"What business do you have with her?"

"I want to return this to her…" He said as he slowly took out an item.

The guard immidiately pinned Shirou to the ground, putting his right arm against his back, making Shirou shouted in pain. He was still a kid after all.

Shirou was holding a knife with its blade wrapped in a handkerchief.

"ARGH! IT HURTS!" He screamed.

"Hey, it's annoying out here. What's going on?" Suddenly a woman came out from the house.

Her sense of fashion was… something else as she was wearing a cyan kimono and red jacket.

It was the woman that Shirou had been pursuing, Ryougi Shiki.

"You are…!?"

"Hey! Ryougi! Tell this man to sto- Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch!"

"Ryougi-sama, do you know this boy?"

"No, I don't."

"Ryougi! I know! I know that you aren't the murderer!"

"!?"

"Release him." Shiki hesitated before telling her bodyguard. "What do you mean I'm not the murderer?"

"…" Shirou slowly stood up, rubbing his aching right arm.

"You saw it, didn't you? That night…" Shiki's face darkened.

"But I know. I know that you aren't."

"If you don't have anything else to say then go home. Kid your age shouldn't be out here this late."

"Oh, I forgot. I came to return this to you before _someone_ pinned me down." Shirou grabbed the knife on the ground and gave it to Shiki, while glaring at the bodyguard. He didn't react.

"Well then, I'll be going home now."

"Giving me back my weapon meaning that I can kill you whenever I want, you know."

"Hah! You aren't the type of person to do that. I know it." After saying that, Shirou walked away from the Ryougi resident.

"Seriously, another one trying to prove my innocent…" Shiki went back into her home with her bodyguard followed, her hand was still grabbing the knife wrapped in a handkerchief.

* * *

"Woah! This is…!"

Shirou saw a manga store on his way back home.

"A new volume of "J*J*'s Bizarred Adventure is out!"

"Man, with all of these things keep happening in the past few days, I haven't had the time to read anymore. I read these all the time when I was in the hospital."

He bought a volume then continue to go back home.

He felt like he had forgotten something, but shrugged it off.

* * *

 **StirDrem here. I havent had the time to write more chapters due to my backlog of projects. I'm sorry but this might be the last chapter i'll be posting for a while. I'll upload more when i have the time.**


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